The present invention has essentially as an object an improved floating caged nut.
Known in the art are caged nuts comprising generally a cage substantially in the shape of a U in cross-section in which a collar nut is retained in a floating manner through the medium of an appropriate means.
This means can be formed of a circlip clipped on the sides of the cage and retaining the nut itself in the said cage.
Such a nut mounting is interesting in that it is possible, on the one hand, to take up plays during the mounting by screwing and, on the other hand, in that it permits the nut to be replaced after the circlip has been dismounted. However, this kind of mounting presents drawbacks in that, when the nut is to be replaced, the circlip remains difficult to dismount and to refit, and in that, moreover, the circlip can be mounted in a wrong manner. It results therefrom that, in the case where pieces are assembled in a rotating and/or a vibrating relationship, the badly mounted circlip can escape from the cage and provoke strong damage.
To remedy that, it has been proposed, in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 119,051, to use, in the place of the circlip, a plate interposed between the bottom of the cage and the collar of the nut and provided on the one hand, with lugs co-operating with the cage in order to retain the plate in the cage and on the other hand, with tabs foldable back on the collar of the nut to retain the latter in the cage. Thus, it was possible to introduce the nut into or to withdraw it from the cage by folding the tabs.
However, such a caged nut presents drawbacks due to the fact that the folding of the tabs with the aid of a tool, in order to mount or to dismount the nut, is a delicate operation which is difficult to perform. Furthermore, the tabs are likely to break after a certain number of folding operations, so that the system becomes unusable and must be replaced, which gives rise to problems, in particular in the case where the cage of the nut is adhered or maintained on a piece by an adhesive strip.